Devices and Connectors > Connectors > Device Connectors

Adding a Device Connector

Interactively

This functionality enables you to interactively define mappings between a device and its device connectors early in your design process, prior to a library part number being assigned to the device. This helps avoid delays waiting for component librarians that may not yet have created the relevant part and part number and permits early definition of the device and its characteristics.

You can also define device connectors on devices that do not yet have library part numbers but will become ICDs. This is especially useful for device engineers who use Capital Logic Designer as the graphical front end to design ICDs. In addition it supports multiple connectors on a single device or footprint.

Note

This flow is not supported on devices with library parts assigned to them or on devices created from ICDs. This is because the library definition or the ICD contains the master footprint information.

Prerequisites

You have added a device with pins to a diagram (with or without a symbol). See Adding a Device Without a Library Part or Symbol or Adding a Device Based on a Symbol.
A library part has not been assigned to the device.
The library parts for the device connectors to add to the device already exist in Capital Component Manager.

Procedure

Right-click the device or symbol and select Edit Device Connectors.The Device Footprint Dialog Box is displayed, listing all the pins on the device.
Select a pin or a group of pins and click the Add device side connector part to selected device pins button ().
The Part Selection Dialog Box is displayed, pre-configured with a filter for No. Cavities/Pins based on the number of rows you selected in the Device Footprint dialog box.
Click the Search parts using criteria specified button () to display parts that match the filter.
Select the required part in the Parts table then click Insert.In the selected rows, the library part number of the connector is displayed in the Part Number column, and its cavity names display in the Cavity column.
Specify a name for the connector in the cells in the Connector Name column. To access a cell in the Connector Name column, double‑click the cell, or select it and press Enter.Tip You can copy the connector name between multiple cells: Select the entire cell (not the value in the cell) and press Ctrl+C to copy. Select the first cell and press Shift+click to select multiple cells, and then press Ctrl+V.
Adjust the cavity / pin mapping as required by dragging and dropping cells in the Cavity column. If the connector library part has a symbol, it is displayed in the Connector View pane. If matching cavity datums have been specified on the symbol, when you select a cell in the Cavity column, the corresponding cavity on the symbol is highlighted, and when you select a cavity on the symbol the corresponding cell in the Cavity column is selected. If more than one symbol has been added to the library part definition, you can switch between symbols using the Symbol dropdown list.Note If you have not specified a value in a cell in the Connector Name column, the border of the corresponding cell in the Cavity column is red and you cannot drag and drop the cell.

Tip You can also: Select a cavity cell in the table, and then click it again to select a cavity from the dropdown list. Select multiple cavity cells and move them all together, for example, to move a whole connector down by one pin.

Once you have completed entering the device mapping information, click OK.

Results

The device connector is added to the device and is shown graphically inside the device graphics.

Note

When you click OK in the device footprint dialog box, styling is updated on the device connector on all instances of the device on which the device connector is present. This means that, if you use the device footprint dialog box to change the symbol of a device connector, the new symbol is used on the diagrams when you click OK and exit the dialog box.

Parent Topic:

Device Connectors